Ruthless Jabiru returns to the chapel of Kings College London for a programme in solidarity with our brothers and sisters seeking asylum by sea. Devised and conducted by Kelly Lovelady, the project will honour tidal forces and all those who have offered themselves up to our oceans in search of a safer life.Continue reading →

Ruthless Jabiru is an all-Australian chamber orchestra based in London. It is the brainchild of conductor Kelly Lovelady, who in recent years has geared the ensemble towards political and environmental concerns. Previous projects have highlighted environmental damage in central Australia and the campaign to end sponsorship by oil companies in the arts sector. For Saturday’s concert, Lovelady and her colleagues turned their attentions to the humanitarian crisis of refugees setting out for Australia by sea.Continue reading →

This weekend I will conduct a musical programme in solidarity with our brothers and sisters seeking asylum by sea in the beautiful chapel of King’s College London.

My ensemble Ruthless Jabiru is a London chamber orchestra dedicated to humanitarian stories. A dual advocacy for contemporary composers and Activist narratives reflects our citizen duty as artists to engage ever more deeply with the world around us; giving voice to the truths of our allies, interrogating the accountability of our leaders and championing solidarity in all its forms.

As I collect my thoughts on another International Women’s Day I have been reflecting on the cult of familiarity and how deep it runs. In concert music culture we are dogged by this Continue reading →

In a time when democracy and basic principles of justice are precarious, there are musicians who are finding ways to use their music to support the greater good.

Written by: Kelly Lovelady

Ruthless Jabiru, a London chamber orchestra of Australian musicians, will use its forthcoming performance to foster a revival of empathy towards refugees.

Centred around the world premiere of The Drowners, a major new orchestral song cycle by British-Australian composer Andrew Ford, the project will honour tidal forces and the many lives lost seeking asylum by sea. This focal work will be framed by the music of composers Nicole Lizée, Rosalind PageWolfgang Rihm and Fausto Romitelli to conjure a muted submarine dreamscape: a dark world of distorted gravity, out of body experience Continue reading →

In my sequence of songs, The Drowners, a surfer struggles against the rip (or dreams he does); a drowning man is dragged back from the cold North Sea by his wife, as his laughing child watches from the beach; a toddler drowns in a well in the 19th-century colony of Augusta, Western Australia; grieving parents are visited by the wraiths of their drowned children; a man, out of his depth all his life, drowns when he swims ‘too far out’; the King of Naples is believed to lie at the bottom of the sea, his eyes having turned to pearls. You might be forgiven for thinking I have an obsession with drowning.Continue reading →

London chamber orchestra Ruthless Jabiru will use its forthcoming performance to foster a revival of empathy towards refugees.

Centred around the world premiere of The Drowners, a major new orchestral song cycle by British-Australian composer Andrew Ford, the project will honour tidal forces and the many lives lost seeking asylum by sea. This focal work will be framed by the music of composers Nicole Lizée, Rosalind Page, Wolfgang Rihm and Fausto Romitelli to conjure a muted submarine dreamscape: a dark world of distorted gravity, out of body experience and ominous fantasies of the inner ear.

Ruthless Jabiru is an ensemble uniquely dedicated to exploring humanitarian, sustainability and social justice stories through the music of contemporary composers. Using orchestral Continue reading →